Milk price crisis: MEPs demand further action to rescue dairy farmers

The EU must quickly take further measures to stabilize milk prices and bring relief to struggling dairy farmers, urged MEPs in Thursday's plenary debate with Commissioner Phil Hogan and Dutch deputy farm minister Hans Hoogeveen. These measures should include an EU-wide lid on milk production to boost prices, a more efficient intervention system, to enable the EU to react more swiftly, and balancing the supply chain to enable farmers to earn fair returns, they said.

Agriculture Committee MEPs debated measures to address the on-going dairy crisis on Wednesday evening with representatives of the Council, the Commission and the dairy sector. A majority of speakers opposed a return of milk quotas, but many MEPs insisted supply must be better managed to avoid increases in milk production that put even more downward pressure on prices. They also stressed an EU-wide solution is needed to avoid distortions on the singlel market.

In 12 April plenary debate MEPs called for rapid relief for dairy farmers and structural reforms to make them more resilient to market shocks and to ensure they are paid fairly.

Parliament also called in July 2015 for mechanisms to protect dairy farmers from abuses in the retail market and insisted that the role of the Milk Market Observatory must be enhanced to enable it to issue crisis warnings earlier and recommend action.